


Snapshot

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, But with Tony/ Rhodey instead of stony, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Humor, I Don't Even Know, Superfamily (Marvel), and Miles is their kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 17:59:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: “I’m not asking him to do something I wouldn’t,” Tony says. “That’s not fair.”Pepper sighs, “well you’re going to have to do something,” she points out.“I’ll probably ignore it forever like I do with most things,” she says in a chipper tone.





	Snapshot

**Author's Note:**

> Named 'Snapshot' because its just a few snapshots into the lives of Tony and Rhodey and later Miles. Idk bois, its just some cute kid fluff.

“I’m not asking him to do something I wouldn’t,” Tony says. “That’s not fair.”

Pepper sighs, “well you’re going to have to do something,” she points out.

“I’ll probably ignore it forever like I do with most things,” she says in a chipper tone. Rhodey is probably used to her doing this anyways, it wouldn’t even be a surprise for him. Poor guy, Tony thinks he deserves better than her but he’d been the one to ask her to marry him. He made his bed; she’s more than happy to let him lie in it until he figures out he settled _hard_. Rhodey is an amazing guy, he could have gotten anyone he wanted and for some dumb ass reason he chose her and frankly she’s too selfish to point out what a bad idea that was.

Case and point, Pepper’s reaction to her deciding to just ignore her problems as usual. “Do I seriously need to remind you that this has literally never worked for you? This is how you end up with alcoholism,” she says, shaking her head.

Tony sighs, “I already told him I never wanted kids.” Seems unfair to change her mind now.

“You were twenty five,” Pepper says like that matters.

“You’ve known you didn’t want kids since you _were_ a kid,” she points out and Pepper sighs.

“The fact that you were young wasn’t my point, the fact that that was ten years ago was. A lot can change in that amount of time.” Not exactly untrue, Tony supposes, but pregnancy for women over thirty five has its risks too and its not like Rhodey is a spring chicken. She doesn’t want to screw the kid up before the poor thing even comes out.

So instead of acknowledging that she grins, “so Pep, think you’ll want kids in five years?” she asks and Pepper wrinkles her nose.

“I would rather hang myself,” she says meaningfully.

*

Rhodey gets why he’s getting the look he is from his current superior officer. “Rhodes, people would _kill_ to have your career,” he says.

People _have_ , so has he, but they don’t say that. Tony used to make jokes about it, having such a tough, macho career when he’s passive and non violent by nature. Doesn’t mean he won’t do what he needs to, but he’s never really been the kind of person the military looks for. He just happens to be resourceful enough to make himself indispensable and he’s also damn good at strategy. You don’t hang out with Tony Stark for the better part of your life and not learn how to be good at avoiding disaster.

“Yeah, I’m aware of that sir, but that doesn’t change my opinion.” He tired of traipsing all over the world, never being home. He sees the damn president more than he sees his wife and how’s that fair, especially to her? Now she’s never complained about it, and until a year ago Rhodey thought she preferred it. Tony has always been the independent type and he thought she would have liked having more than enough space to breathe but as it turns out she didn’t much care for it even if she’d been quick to say that she’d always support his career. Of course she would- she’s always been generous to a fault and, contrary to popular belief, she’s not selfish. She’s had her moments, sure, but that’s never been who she is.

*

When Rhodey comes back he’s acting weird and Tony thinks that someone has ratted her out with the kid thing when Rhodey finally comes out with it. “I think I might quit the military,” he says and Tony’s eyebrows fly up.

“I… you… I thought you loved you job?” she asks for lack of anything better. Rhodey smiles a little.

“I used to, but I love you more and I hate being away most of the time. I’m an old man, I want to rest,” he says and Tony snorts.

“Don’t be so dramatic, you’re not that old. Have you thought of what you want to do after?” she asks. The timing is perfect, ideal actually. But she’s not bringing anything up until she knows what Rhodey is thinking.

He sighs, “I don’t know. I’ll find something to keep myself busy, you know how much I hate doing nothing for too long.” So she knows. Sometimes, between deployments, he’ll be home too long and start harassing her in the lab so she’s forced to kick him out. Her lab space is her space and Rhodey can only be in it when he’s not in her way all the time. She sits back in her chair for a long moment, debating whether or not to say anything at all when Rhodey speaks. “Out with it, Stark, you’ve been acting weird since I’ve been back.”

Tony laughs, shaking her head. Yeah, of course he noticed. He notices everything. It’s kind of why she married him to begin with, because unlike most every one else he looks past her brash attitude and false bravado. “I uh… want… kids,” she says slowly, unsure how to phrase it even though its such a simple thing.

Rhodey’s eyebrows go up. “Kids? You’ve never wanted kids.”

No, she never wanted to be her father. _Pepper_ doesn’t want kids. Funnily enough it’d been a conversation with her about the subject that had made the distinction clearer to her. Pepper genuinely has no draw to children, absolutely hates them and Tony has seen her with them. She’s always uncomfortable in their presence and does whatever she can to leave the situation if she’s stuck with kids. Tony has never been like that- she loves kids, its just that she didn’t want to recreate her home dynamic as a kid. After thinking about it she’d felt rather guilty for thinking that too- Rhodey would never be like either of her parents and it’s not fair to judge him like he would be. And, truth be told, she doesn’t think she’d be like her parents either.

“I did some reevaluating,” she says eventually.

If it were anyone else they’d make a comment about her making snap decisions or some other stupid comment but Rhodey doesn’t. Instead he considers her for a long moment before grinning, “I always wanted kids,” he says and Tony raises an eyebrow because he never told her that. “I knew you’d tell me it was you of kids and I never needed the ultimatum to know which I’d chose,” he says, answering her unasked question.

The unexpected admission gives Tony a warm feeling and she smiles. “God, you are too good for me,” she says.

Rhodey shakes his head. “No I’m not. We’re perfect for each other, always have been.”

*

“Pregnancy isn’t beautiful, it’s a fucking horror story,” Tony mumbles and Pepper nods.

“Like an exorcism happening inside you,” she says and Tony gives her a _look_ because what? “Don’t look at me like that, I saw that kid’s entire _hand print_ on the side of your stomach the other day. Replace it with a cross and now you’re in an exorcism flick. Absolutely horrifying,” she says, shaking her head.

Yeah, okay. Maybe she has a point. “Rhodey is excited. He’s getting bored with nothing to do.” She didn’t want to give up her career and since he was thinking of ending his he’d been quick to offer to stay home. Said it’d give him time to think about what he wanted to do while keeping busy. And that he always knew if they had kids he’d be staying home anyways- he wouldn’t expect her to give up time at the company. Of course she wouldn’t have expected him to stay home either but Rhodey had been so enthusiastic about the idea that she knew he genuinely didn’t care.

Pepper snorts, “has he invaded your lab yet?” she asks.

Tony sighs, “he keeps trying to make me follow more safety precautions and _honestly_ , there is only so much safety I can do alright?” She’s already done everything she needs to and usually doesn’t bother with plus a few extra things to avoid Miles getting any kind of hurt but Rhodey hovers. JARVIS has taken to locking him out, unprompted too, which Tony finds interesting. The AI was always supposed to predict the needs of the user before Tony made any requests but JARVIS somehow developed politeness and always asks before he makes major decisions. This is the first time he hasn’t so Tony is documenting all changes to the AI’s code.

Pepper laughs, “he’s sent me like five reminders that caffeine isn’t good for you,” she says.

“Rhodey can pry my caffeine out of my cold, dead hands,” Tony says. She’s been sticking to tea anyways but still.

*

Rhodey frowns, “how is it possible that he looks more like you than me?” he asks.

Tony also frowns at the toddler. “I don’t know, but he is an adorable little brown version of me,” she says.

Rhodey lets out a huff and crosses his arms over his chest. “This ain’t right- you have a kid with a white woman and its supposed to come out looking like you. That’s how it works,” he says and Tony starts laughing.

“He has your nose,” she says in Miles’ defense.

“ _One_ feature, that barely even counts.”

“He has your eyes,” Tony adds.

“Baby, we both have brown eyes and I’m black- if he came out with another eye color I would be questioning things,” he says.

Tony makes an offended noise, “black kids can have eye colors other than brown. I mean if he came out a whole other race than sure, but genetics do the funky chicken all the time. Actually most of my family has brown eyes, if he came out with a different eye color I’d be confused too,” she amends. Her mom hadn’t had brown eyes, but she married in and even most of her side of the family had brown eyes. She was one of the odd cousins out.

Rhodey snorts, “nice, honey. Seriously though, one feature?”

If it makes him feel any better Miles absolutely has his temperament and that’s probably for the best. “He inherited our genius,” Tony tells him and Rhodey lifts an eyebrow.

“Don’t let Pepper hear you say that, you know how annoyed she gets when people talk about how advanced their children are,” he says, laughing.

So she does, but so does Tony. ‘Advanced’ doesn’t mean ‘did something 2 weeks earlier than should be expected’ it means actually fucking advanced. It’s a pet peeve she developed as a child when everyone kept trying to act like the stupid ass kids around her were on _any_ level even _close_ to her. They weren’t, and they never will be even in adulthood. Especially in adulthood, really.

“His problem solving skills are exceptional. I noticed it awhile ago when you told me about his ability to find cookies _anywhere_. I thought it might be useful to track down the footage. Turns out he figured out how to get into your phone and just watched the security footage of you hiding the cookies wherever. Anyways, so I tested his abilities, then I had JARVIS do it, and then I got him tested as a control,” she says.

Rhodey frowns, “the actual testing was the control?” he asks and Tony snorts.

“Forgive me for having no faith in people who labeled me legally retarded as a kid because they thought my inability to pay attention was due to a low IQ rather than one so high shit like Kindergarten made me want to kill myself,” she says. She remembers the boredom of the early years too, how everything came to her basically instantaneously and everyone else took _so_ long to understand. It was fucking torture sitting around for seven hours a day with a bunch of kids who were way less intelligent than you. She used to hate them for it, but has since come around to realizing not everyone could learn like she did and as fast as she did. And that maybe that’s a good thing given how often she gets herself into trouble. Its not like it was the other kids fault, but she would have figured that someone would look into _why_ she acted that way, not just assume she was a fucking idiot.

“I’d be surprised if I wasn’t labeled the loud disruptive kid,” he says and Tony frowns. Rhodey, _loud_? Or disruptive?

“Pretty sure your teachers have never actually met you,” she says.

Rhodey laughs, “oh they did, but ‘genius’ is a term reserved for young white boys who can’t pay attention, not girls and black kids.” So Tony knows- she’s worked with a lot of people who are as smart, and occasionally smarter, than her and its always white guys who get taken the most seriously. She hopes that changes at least some by the time Miles grows up.

“Yeah, anyway turns out I was right. I have some exercises I want you to do with him to test his skills a little, keep him sharp. Also turn off the cameras when you hide the cookies. And change your damn phone password.”

*

Miles has that embarrassed kid face on and Rhodey looks so hilariously offended by it. It’s probably the only thing Miles inherited from Tony temperament wise- a fierce independence. Rhodey likes people and Miles… only likes then when he likes them.

“This is so embarrassing!” he says, giving them both a ‘please stop this’ look.

“Nope, I wanna hear you say it,” Rhodey says.

“Dad, _please_ , people are staring,” he says, eyes wide as he pleads.

“‘Dad, I love you,’” Rhodey says. “Or you could go with ‘I love you, dad.”

Miles lets out a long groan and rolls his eyes, “dad I love you now just _go_ ,” he says, waving at them to shoo. It’s his looking over his shoulder that gives him away and when Tony looks over she spots a familiar kid walking towards them.

“You have a crush on Peter Parker,” she says, taking a bit of a stab in the dark but the absolute look of _horror_ on Miles’ face tells her she’s right.

“Oh my god, I do not now will you two just _go_ you’re ruining my life!” he says dramatically and Tony starts laughing.

“Thirteen years and I’ve finally managed to ruin his life!” she says excitedly. Its not really in Miles’ character to say something like that but Tony used to say stuff like that to her parents all the time. Of course Howard really _did_ ruin her life but still. She’s always wanted the line thrown back at her and she’s gotten her wish.

“Mom, you have a plane to catch so can you please for the love of _god_ leave!” Miles asks.

“I’m an atheist honey, the love of magical sky fairies will not get me to do anything,” she says. “Also, I’m taking the Stark jet. The jet isn’t going to take off without the Stark on it,” she points out.

Miles lets out another dramatic groan. “Hey Miles,” Peter says, smiling at Miles.

Poor kid gets this loopy ass look on his face and Tony remembers that. She’d looked at Rhodey the same way though of course he’d been five years older and disinterested thanks to the age difference. They hadn’t started dating until a couple years after her parents died. Tony grins at Rhodey, pleased that they’ve managed to catch his first crush in action. Adorable, really.

“Can you please tell my parents to stop ruining my life?” he asks when he remembers that words are supposed to happen. Oh, that is just _precious_.

Peter smiles at them and waves, “I don’t think you’re ruining his life,” he says and Miles looks betrayed.

“I need new friends,” he mumbles.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
